Been toying with the idea of using Kickstarter for a San Francisco history book I have been collecting notes for, but that whole Invite thing has put a pause on the plan. Writing out a proposal for the book does help to focus the intent, though....

It's certainly an interesting idea (I could probably go for something like that once I get to working and finishing my audio boxset) but I have neither a US address or bank account.

So for now it's going on the list of "interesting ideas that I can't use", right next to Blurb (which doesn't send out earnings through Paypal yet and cashing in 25$ checks in my bank eats about 50% of them, heh) and Magcloud (not shipping beyond a couple selected countries).

That's kind of an interesting idea - my brother-in-law wants to do an online comic with me (he draws, I write), but needs either a scanner or wacom tablet type thing. Maybe once I get a good bit written, I'll have him draw up a bunch of it, maybe go to Kinko's to scan in a sample, then give it a go.

I'm surprised there aren't more Kickstarter folks lurking around here. I would have thought that Whitechapel of all places would have had more than me and Laurenn.

Well, if nothing else, please check it out, and not just my own project. There are some truly amazing projects burning along over there. I'm supporting two of them, one of course being Laurenn's which just funded (WOOHOO!) and a dance project, because I am a complete nut for dance.

Kickstarter is something that I've been contemplating for a while...to be honest I'd love to do a project where I travel (hitchhike, bus or fly) around Canada and parts of America and just take photos (eventually to either be put in a book or in an exhibit or both) but have no way of doing such a thing. But first I want to hammer down my skills first and stick the traveling to fairly short in distance stuff. I feel that if I'm going to be asking people for the amount of money I would need, I better make DAMN sure that I'm going to produce some knock-out stuff. As it is now, the ratio of hit and miss isn't where I'd like it. So maybe I'll use it for the future, but not now.

Yeah, Kickstarter is only good if you have a project ready to go *right now*. It's not a future thing. I happen to have three projects in the hopper and I'm starting with this one, because it was the most ready to go. Either way, I'm putting the exhibition on in some form in March, this just makes the difference between shoe string and possibly in my front yard to, actual gallery space and actual wine with actual exhibition book, among other awesome goodies. In short, from scraped together bits to actual event.

What's awesome (for me so far) is also the direct feedback I'm getting from people.

It's something that I recently got an account for, but it's down the To Do list for getting my collective off the ground after Build the Goddamn Website and Start Promoting Ourselves. Because, like you, we have a shoestring budget for art shows and while we've had a few NYC venues give us showing space, we'd like to be able to get something absolutely wonderful going, perhaps supporting our installation-based artists or just getting a space that we can absolutely transform into a work of art.

As an aside, your main site's link to view the statement about the show breaks in my 12" macbook firefox window. On the rollover, the text goes further down the screen than is visible & I can't scroll down, since then my mouse falls off the link. I lose the part that starts "I hope..." and it doesn't fit in that rectangle that appears behind it. I can read it in my second, giant monitor fine, though it still doesn't fit in the rectangle.

How are you going about promoting your project? Is it something where it seems to pull potential contributors just by folks who visit the site or are you doing external promotions? Is there a way to find out where your patrons are coming from or any sort of analytical system?

Well, bugger. I'm using Firefox as my browser and it's working fine. Sadly, I don't control the engine. Can you please kick a comment to the Kickstarter crew and let them know that you're having an issue?

I am promoting my project *everywhere*. Emailed my list, though I have some personal emails to send out to people that I need to still do, Facebook, Twitter and I've done the Digg thing for the project. It's pulling in contributors out of the woodwork and people who are looking to pledge in the future when funds come free. I've also gotten a couple of *totally* random pledges, just out of friends of friends of friends of friends visiting the site and liking the project.

I have quite the dashboard on my end as the maker of the project, but I don't think it allows just anyone to see it, to protect the privacy of the pledges and all that jazz. Right now, my patrons are literally coming in from all over the world, and from all sorts of vectors. It's actually pretty damn cool.

If you're on the self-promotion kick right now, I can't recommend enough Self-Promotion for the Creative Person. Been kicking my ass. I'll link to the book later, right now, I've got to head to bed before I crash like the Hindenberg. Gotta be up stupid early for the dayjob.

Please keep me posted, by the by, when you get your stuff live. I'll shove it out to my peeps too.

My friend and I are working on a proposal for Kickstarter for our web show. We need a new camera, first one that we actually own (our current one is on loan) and two, so we have one that isn't grainy when it's inside even with us using nearly as much light as the sun. This wouldn't be a big problem, if the whole show isn't going to be shot inside except for a single scene. We could also use a nice mic too. Everything is all ready for filming minus that. We'd rather not have the film quality be points against us right off the bat and lose viewers before we can bring the funny.

Do you have examples of the kind of thing that you are doing? Email me at angela.n.hunt at gmail dot com

And to toot my own horn, please do spread the word on my project. It's still cooking along and I got some great feedback, so I've added a, this is what the money buys you description to the project. Please to make the clickie!

I am not as cool as Melissa and Meaghan, but I really believe in my work and I really want to put on a kick ass exhibition that will rock people's socks.

Just have a question and please feel free to point at me and say "WRONG" because I have absolutely no idea how things like this work in America, not to mention just starting to think "hey, maybe this art thing would be a good life choice". But is applying for a grant to help/completely fund exhibition space an option or is that just too tedious a process?

It is an option, but it is also very time consuming just trying to find all the ones that still remain since the gov't started cutting its funding to the arts and the economy has also cut off a lot of private patrons from contributing.

There's also a reason why people pay for grant writers - competition is incredibly fierce and there are a lot of starving artists out there. It's something that's a bit tough to be doing by oneself. It isn't a reason to not do it entirely, but it's not something many of us have the time/patience for - especially if what one plans to do has a time limit for getting done.

@oldhat No, it is absolutely not a bad question and to answer it fairly, as an example, I am currently in the middle of working on applying for *four* separate grants. The issue is, as you rightly point out, with the funding having been so bitterly cut, competition for grants is cutthroat. Also, frankly, the work I do doesn't really appeal to most of the grant giving foundations. As for funding exhibitions, typically grants don't do that. Completion grants, yes, or residencies. Three of the grants I'm going for are residencies/fellowships. Only one is a completion grant and it's very time constrained.

Oh, I see that @glukkake answered this pretty much. So, ditto. Time consuming/fierce competition. And like I said, in my case, because of the nature of my work, it made a thousand times more sense to go Kickstarter and go straight to the people who actually dig my work.

It's beyond fully funded with still another week to go<3<3 . . . But I'm hopeful that we'll pick up more pledges because GOD I'VE BEEN SO FUCKING HUNGRY we still have plenty of pages left to pre-sell.

Kickstarter's a super extraordinary site! It makes my heart all warm to see support for creativity out there like that. I expect to someday be making enough money (doing what I love!) to help fund other people's projects through it myself. :)

As mentioned above, you do need a US bank account and address (as it is done through Amazon.com) but they do accept suggestions and people can add their voice to the one to expand it globally. They have also posted on their blog about why they don't use someone like PayPal, and they say they are working to make it more international. So fingers crossed.